Brit Folk
The Watersons, Fairport Convention, Nick Drake, Kate Rusby, Jake Bugg, The Unthanks
Katie Spencer & Max Clilverd | Live Session
Raised in the East Yorkshire flatlands on the fringes of Hull, Katie Spencer’s landscape has always been that of open skies and widening rivers. It is this sense of space and movement that flows through her music. Her writing, and most notably her guitar playing, stems from a time when the steel-stringed instrument was truly finding its voice. Artists like Joni Mitchell, Michael Chapman and John Martyn weave into her sound. Katie absorbs these influences into her songwriting and with her distinctive deep vibrato and crystal-clear guitar style, she makes the music inimitably her own.
What Is Love was produced by Matt Ingram (Laura Marling, The Staves). Recorded in London’s Urchin Studios, it features prominent players Giacomo Smith (clarinet), Max Clilverd (pedal steel), Tom Mason (double bass) and Matt Ingram (drums, synth). The album evokes the spirit of Joni Mitchell’s finest later works, always honouring without emulating. Lyrically mature and at times pastoral, the album is melodically sophisticated and unflinchingly honest.
Music and literature collide at Celtic Connections 2026
This year’s Celtic Connections programme is full of projects bringing together writers and musicians. Jim Gilchrist speaks to some of those involved
By Jim Gilchrist
Celtic Connections, Glasgow’s roots music juggernaut that has burgeoned over three decades from a modest folk event into Europe’s largest winter music festival, this year adds a further strand to its mammoth roster of folk, jazz, world and wider roots-based music, introducing commissions combining eminent Scottish writers with leading traditional musicians.
This 33rd iteration of the festival, boasting more than 300 events across some two-dozen venues across the city, will bring together poets, authors and musicians in a recently announced multi-year partnership until 2027 between the Glasgow festival and Edinburgh International Book Festival [ . . . ]
Continue article at The Scotsman | Celtic Connections Website
5 Surprising Facts About Fairport Convention’s ‘Liege & Lief’
Released in the final month of 1969, ‘Liege & Lief’ didn’t just top the charts; it essentially invented an entire genre. Fairport Convention took the electrical energy of rock and roll and fused it with the ancient, mystical storytelling of the British Isles. It remains a monumentally influential recording, famously voted the “Most Influential Folk Album of All Time” by BBC Radio 2 listeners for its revolutionary approach to traditional music.
A Style Born From A Motorway Tragedy
The creative shift toward traditional English music was born out of a period of heavy recovery for the band. Following a devastating motorway accident that claimed the life of their original drummer, the group retreated to a rented Queen Anne mansion in Farley Chamberlayne. In that isolated house, they moved away from American West Coast influences to focus on “electrifying” British myths and ballads like “Matty Groves.”
The Drummer Who Had To Invent A Language
When Dave Mattacks joined Fairport Convention as their new drummer, he came from a background of playing in Mecca Ballrooms. He reportedly had to learn a completely new style of drumming on the fly to fit the band’s traditional folk direction. Guitarist Simon Nicol later recalled that Mattacks was essentially inventing a whole new form of folk-rock percussion without even realizing he was doing it at the time.
The Most Influential Band That Never Toured Together
In a strange twist of rock history, the classic lineup that recorded this masterpiece never actually toured to support the finished album. Both lead vocalist Sandy Denny and founding bassist Ashley Hutchings quit the band in November 1969, just before the record hit the shelves in December. Hutchings left to form Steeleye Span to go even deeper into folk, while Denny departed to start her own venture, Fotheringay.
Hidden Meanings In A Middle English Title
The title ‘Liege & Lief’ might sound like a simple alliterative phrase, but it is actually a clever linguistic nod to the band’s new traditional focus. The title uses two specific Middle English words that reflect the group’s intent for the project. “Liege” translates to mean loyal, while “Lief” translates to mean ready, effectively signaling that the band was both loyal to the tradition and ready to move it forward.
A Masterpiece Recorded In Free-Flow Sessions
While the lyrical detail of the album is meticulous, many of the arrangements were born from spontaneous “flow” sessions. The band took traditional material found in Cecil Sharp’s collections and sculpted it through full improvisations in their communal rehearsal room. This method gave tracks like “Tam Lin” a sense of looseness and immediacy that many critics felt set a template that no other folk-rock band could ever top.
https://open.spotify.com/embed/album/505zw4fKgpk8HXqyw3BMFq?utm_source=oembed
Source: 5 Surprising Facts About Fairport Convention’s ‘Liege & Lief’ – That Eric Alper